Flood

A very wet close to a rather rainy day - high winds, too, forcing the water through cracks it might not otherwise have penetrated, and exposing the weaknesses in walls and roofs. The creaks and groans coming from some of our outbuildings are quite alarming. It's dark by now (19.00 GMT), but down below the river was already out halfway across the valley before sunset, and the floods will be worse by tomorrow.

It occurs to me that the fields near where we lived in my childhood days used to be flooded every winter, as I recall; a lake would form, stretching halfway round the town, complete with ducks and swans and winter flocks of seagulls, and most years the waters would be out more or less through till Easter. But this was not a disaster - rarely did the flood rise high enough to threaten any homes or other buildings - just an anticipated natural event that was in part at least a blessing, for it helped keep the fields fertile and improve the summer grazing.

I suppose the same was probably true round in these parts as well, but today's winter floods have changed from friend to foe, from ally to threat. I am told that river water nowadays moves downstream much more quickly than before, and not only do floods appear where they used not to, we have also constructed houses and factories in places where our ancestors would never have dreamed of building. It is also true I'm sure that our modern much more mobile communities suffer much greater inconvenience and disruption than did our ancestors, when roads are closed and bridges awash. And that goes for modern farming too, as we seek to use the land more intensively and productively.

We no longer live to the same degree in rhythm with the seasons. Of course, there always were some destructive storms, and serious flooding. In one of my previous parishes a flash flood in the mid 19th century carried off half the vicarage, and cost the lives of several parishioners (though not, one is pleased to record, the vicar or any of his household). But flooding today seems to happen more often than before. Perhaps the climate has got worse - global warming, anyone? But we also live complex lives, with all that that entails.

This is not to criticise our modern way of life, not really, nor am I pining for some rosy but quite fictitious image of the days of yore. I just find myself reflecting on how things change, that's all - and maybe the irony that, for all our comparative sophistication, our modern power and wealth, there are still times when all we can do is seek shelter!